TB bacteria's trash-eating inspires search for new drugs

When hijacking a garbage truck, one might as well make use of the trash. That logic drives how tuberculosis-causing bacteria feed, say Cornell scientists.
They report that bacteria-infecting macrophages – garbage trucklike immune cells – slow their hosts' trash-processing abilities to snack on trash they pick up. The study, selected as Editor's Choice in the journal Cellular Microbiology June's issue, opens a new road in the search for better drugs to fight tuberculosis.